


Mediocris Dente

by QuillerQueen



Series: Bread and Games [9]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Ancient Rome, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, OQ Prompt Party 2019, ancient rome au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 09:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Prompt 2: "Roland’s first lost tooth." Flashback to shortly after Robin had been carted off to Capua and Roland had come to live with Regina and Henry at the large house on Palatine Hill.





	Mediocris Dente

Regina wakes mid-night to Roland’s choked sobs.

She flies blindly from bed and into the corridor, rounding the corner only to find Roland’s tiny, stooped figure shuffling towards her.

“Shhh, sweetheart, it’s all right,” she whispers as he stumbles whimpering into her waiting arms.

The child has been in her care a fortnight now, and he’s been adjusting...slowly. The sudden shift in his young life had, after all, been absolutely brutal, and his father’s absence rattled his whole world with shockwaves he’ll need a while yet to recover from.

They’ve been making strides though, one day at a time. Regina, desperate to ease his pain and rebuild his lost sense of security, has been loving on him, doting on him so much she worries sometimes about being overbearing, overstepping where his father should be—but the poor boy must have been loved and cherished his whole life, for even now in his misery he drinks up affection like a tree in the desert.

The days have been manageable. Roland is curious, and the large house on Palatine Hill gives him plenty to explore. Games and adventures keep him fairly reliably occupied, with Henry and his equally wild imagination a perfect partner in crime.

The nights, however...they rob the poor child of the fragile peace the colourful days manage to weave together. Regina tells him stories until her voice is hoarse. She holds him through hours of tears and cries for his father, and wakes up a dozen times a night with him thrashing against her chest, tortured by nightmares.

Three days ago marked the first time Roland slept through the night; today’s the first one he’s chosen to spend in Henry’s instead of Regina’s bedroom.

But now he is very much awake—and hurting.

“I w-want my p-papa,” he stammers, drenching her nightdress in tears and snot.

“I know, baby, I know,” she shushes, running her palm over his back in steady passes that fail to settle his heaving breaths.

“H-he...he promised…” Roland slurs.

“Your papa would like nothing more than to be with you, Roland.” It’s true—Robin would walk through the flaming depths of Tartarus to be with his son, especially at a moment like this, when his turmoil is so great. Except he can’t even move freely within the damn ludus he’s a prisoner at, much less walk the miles stretching between Rome and Capua. Roland doesn’t know that though, not the whole truth of Robin’s miserable existence as a thief, then criminal, and now slave—Regina has sworn to protect his little heart. “And he will be, as soon as his work is done. I promise, okay?”

“But I need to see him now!”

He’s not usually like this. There’s been the occasional tantrum, sure. How could there not, when the child has so much to cope with, things even Regina’s life-hardened heart has trouble containing, much less a five-year-old’s? So there has been an outburst now and again, but the way he glares and stomps his foot at her now is new.

“Roland—”

“You don’t understand!” Roland’s voice breaks, splinters as he holds out something she can’t make out in the dimly lit, drafty hallway. “My tooth,” he says sadly, opening his mouth and his palm both, to show her what used to be in the former is now laid in the latter. “It came out.”

“Oh,” she says dumbly. Truly, she’s at a loss. Is he in pain? Is that why he’s distraught? Did he not know to expect this? “Your first tooth?” she prompts gently, rubbing his arms up and down.

Roland nods.

“Papa promised I’d get my own stuff to clean them with, so my new teeth are nice and white and healthy.” He sniffs miserably, then hangs his head. “He said he’d teach me how.”

_ Oh. _

Do the gods not have a heart to let this sweet, precious boy suffer so? 

“Oh, Roland,” she sighs, coaxing his chin up with a finger that trembles ever so slightly. “I’m sorry he can’t do that for you, darling. But you know what? I happen to have a few things to spare. You can have them if you like.”

“I don’t know how to do it proper.”

_ Properly _ , her insufferable mind throws back, but she bites her tongue—she may be a monster for even thinking it in a moment like this, but she’s not evil enough to actually correct him.

Her first instinct is to offer to teach him herself, but...it doesn’t sit right with her. Here she is, trying to parent him, when it should really be Robin—Roland should get to learn from his father, like he’s clearly been looking forward to. With that not being an option, however, and with her feeling too much like overstepping...

“How about Henry shows you tomorrow?”

Roland contemplates that, his brow furrowing as his mouth draws into that cute little pout of concentration.

“Henry’s a big boy. He knows stuff,” comes Roland’s swift appraisal to no surprise at all—he idolises Henry, has taken a shine to him from the onset. “Did you teach him, when he was little?”

“I did.”

“Okay,” Roland finally agrees with a curt nod. He’s no longer crying, though his face shines wet in the scant moonlight and his lips still quiver as he stands there, tooth in hand. “R’gina? Can we keep it? I wanna show papa when I see him again.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, Roland,” she sniffs—and she needs to rein it in, for Tartarus’ sake, she needs to be strong for Roland, she can’t afford to fall apart with him. “Would you like to come to my room and find a box to keep it in?”

“Will you tell me a story, too? Please? It helps keep the bad dreams out.”

She can’t very well argue with that, can she?

They store Roland’s first lost tooth in a carved little box next to a sharpened twig and a jar of ground eggshells, pumice, and mint, and at long last the exhausted child falls asleep halfway through a tale about Hygieia’s bowl.

Robin will open the box months later and find it full of baby teeth—cheeky culprits responsible for Roland’s gap-toothed grin.


End file.
